Tottenham’s Trincao Chase Now Runs Through Jeddah

Francisco Trincão is already Al-Ahli’s No. 7, on a deal running to 2030, after Tottenham tried to keep him in Europe in July. The Portugal winger left Sporting CP on 18 July for Jeddah, and any later Tottenham move now starts there, not in Lisbon.

He has two Saudi Pro League goals in six games as of 8 September 2026. The player some still sketch as a winter target is wearing green in the Gulf, on Gulf wages, with four years left on the contract.

Trincão Already Plays for Al-Ahli in Jeddah

The idea that Tottenham can still land a Sporting attacker later this year is out of date. Al-Ahli announced him on 18 July, handed him the No. 7 shirt, and put him in the side as the club’s wide creator after Riyad Mahrez left.

He is 26, born 29 December 1999 in Viana do Castelo, and he arrived in Saudi Arabia in his prime rather than at the tail of a career. That is the part European dressing rooms keep coming back to. A winger who had just posted his best creative season in Portugal chose a new league at the age when most still want the Champions League week after week.

Tottenham did have a window. In early July, after Portugal’s World Cup run ended, he slowed a Saudi offer and weighed a Premier League return. North London was in that conversation. Then he signed for Al-Ahli anyway, and Roberto De Zerbi’s squad filled the wide roles from inside England instead.

Four Months From a Loyalty Deal to Jeddah

On 5 March 2026, Sporting stood him up at the Teatro Politeama in Lisbon and announced a contract renewal through until 2030, with the buyout clause left at €60 million. He talked about the fans, the stadium, and the affection that had brought him to Alvalade in 2022.

It’s a great feeling. It was something that had been talked about for some time and now it has come to fruition. I’m very happy to be able to continue representing Sporting CP.

Francisco Trincão, Teatro Politeama, Lisbon

Asked why he was staying, he gave the same list he had used four years earlier: the supporters, the ground, the club. One hundred and thirty-five days later, Sporting filed the sale.

FROM THE 2030 RENEWAL TO JEDDAH

1. 5 March 2026: Sporting extends his contract to 2030 and keeps the €60 million buyout in place.
2. 10 July 2026: He pauses the Al-Ahli offer after the World Cup and weighs Premier League interest, including Tottenham.
3. 13 July 2026: The Al-Ahli deal is confirmed in public, with paperwork moving and Mahrez’s old role named as the vacancy.
4. 18 July 2026: Sporting tells Portugal’s securities regulator the sale is done, and Al-Ahli present him in Jeddah.

The March night was a lock-in. The July night was a sale. Both can be true in modern football, and both now sit on the same CV Tottenham would have to buy.

Two League Goals in 28 Wolves Games

England already had a long look at him. Barcelona paid €31 million to take him from Braga in 2020, then loaned him to Wolverhampton Wanderers for 2021-22. He started 16 Premier League matches, played 28, and scored twice, with one assist. Across 30 appearances in all competitions he was involved in four team goals.

That is the tape. It is not a cameo. It is a full season in the league De Zerbi now coaches, under a Portuguese staff, alongside Pedro Neto, and it did not stick. Barcelona had already used him as a squad winger: 28 Liga games, three goals, 42 appearances in all.

THE FOUR STOPS ON TRINCÃO’S CV

Sporting is where the story changed. He joined on loan in July 2022 for €3 million, then the club bought 50 percent of his rights for €7 million and the rest for €11 million in August 2025, a staged outlay of €21 million. In four seasons he played 208 games, scored 47 goals, and added 45 assists, winning the league in 2023-24 and 2024-25 and the Taça de Portugal in 2024-25.

Last season he started almost every week. Opta logged 13 goals and 15 assists in 54 matches across the league, the Champions League, both domestic cups, and the Super Cup. In the league alone he had 7 goals and 11 assists in 34 games and 2,847 minutes. In Europe he scored four times and set up three more in 11 Champions League matches, including a brace against Kairat. That is the creator Tottenham were told they were getting. The Wolves line is the one they already own.

Why Tottenham Bought Premier League Names Instead

De Zerbi, hired in March 2026, spent the summer on players who already knew English football. Tottenham laid out more than £300 million on 10 signings, every one of them from a Premier League club, and shut the window on 1 September. The head coach had asked for footballers who would not need a year to adjust.

Trincão, in that light, was a misfit even before Al-Ahli paid him. He can play both flanks and as an attacking midfielder, and he said at his renewal that he will go left, right, or wherever the manager points. Physical duels and the weekly pace of the Premier League are the open question, because Wolves already ran that experiment.

THE ATTACKERS TOTTENHAM BOUGHT INSTEAD

• Savio: Signed from Manchester City for £75 million, with £10 million in add-ons, as the wide forward De Zerbi had chased before.
• Omar Marmoush: Arrived on loan from City with a purchase obligation, a runner who presses and finishes in the same band of the pitch.
• Mykhailo Mudryk: Joined on loan from Chelsea with an option to buy at £75 million, a late wide addition after the club had already spent on the middle of the pitch.

Those deals sat inside Tottenham’s summer transfer window alongside record fees for Sandro Tonali (£92.5 million, plus £7.5 million in add-ons) and Mateus Fernandes (£85 million), plus £52 million for Jan Paul van Hecke. Tottenham’s July chase for Trincão was real enough that he asked for days to think after the World Cup. Then the Saudi contract won, and the wide positions were filled from the Premier League list he had just stepped off.

The €39.3 Million Sporting Logged With the Regulator

Sporting’s filing with the Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários, sent on 18 July, put the sale at €39.3 million fixed and €4.4 million in variables tied to his performance in Saudi Arabia, a ceiling of €43.7 million. Al-Ahli, per that filing, covered the 10 percent intermediary cut and the solidarity mechanism. Fabrizio Romano had already posted the agreement as a $45 million fixed fee and $5 million in add-ons, with Trincão tagged as Mahrez’s replacement.

https://x.com/FabrizioRomano/status/2076631495138058241

Nicolò Schira, writing as the personal terms were being closed, put him on personal terms of €12 million a year through 2030. Al-Ahli sporting director Rui Pedro Braz attended the signing. Jorge Mendes’s Gestifute ran the player’s side. On the day he was presented, Trincão sounded like a man who had picked the project in front of him.

I’m very proud to join Al Ahli. The passion of Al-Ahli supporters was one of the main reasons that encouraged me to take this step. I promise to fight alongside my teammates to achieve success and make the fans happy.

Francisco Trincão, Al-Ahli presentation, Jeddah

He had 30 minutes at the World Cup in Portugal’s 5-0 win over Uzbekistan and then went on holiday. He never reported back to Alcochete. Sporting, which had just tied him down to 2030, booked a sale that ranks among its bigger summer receipts, behind the earlier Viktor Gyökeres deal and in the same band as Morten Hjulmand’s move to Atlético Madrid.

Jeddah Has Not Been a Clean Start

Six league games is a small sample, but it is not a blank one. He has two goals, including one on 4 September against Al-Riyadh, and on 8 September he whipped in the cross for Ivan Toney in a 3-2 defeat at Al-Qadsiah. He also stepped between teammates during a water-break row in that match as the night got away from Al-Ahli.

AL-AHLI’S OPENING NUMBERS

• League games: Six appearances, two goals, as of 8 September 2026.
• Shirt: No. 7, four-year contract through 2030.
• Latest night: An assist for Toney in a 3-2 loss at Al-Qadsiah on 8 September.
• The mood: Home supporters have already asked why he keeps starting when the side drops points.

That impatience is the other half of the Saudi bet. Al-Ahli paid a European-level fee for a 26-year-old in form, then put him in a dressing room with Toney, Galeno, and Merih Demiral and asked him to replace Mahrez on the wing. Some nights the left foot still finds the far runner. Some nights the same crowd that was the selling point in July wants him taken off. A later Tottenham enquiry would be buying that tape as well as the Sporting one.

What a Tottenham Deal Would Cost Now

A winter or next-summer move is a different contract from the one Tottenham were circling in July. Sporting’s €60 million clause is dead. Al-Ahli hold him until 2030. The wages Schira posted sit in a band English clubs rarely match for a wide player with two Premier League goals on his record. The Saudi window stretching into October is the only near-term path that does not wait for January, and even that path means talking Jeddah into selling a player it has just presented as a pillar.

De Zerbi already has Savio, Mudryk, Mohammed Kudus, and Marmoush in the same band of the pitch. He also has a long injury file behind them. None of that turns Trincão back into a Sporting asset on a homegrown clause. The later-year chase, if it is still alive in north London, is a raid on a Gulf club for a winger who looked at Tottenham in July, asked for time, and then took the Al-Ahli contract.

He is playing. He has scored. He has a 2030 deal in Jeddah and a Premier League season on the shelf that never took off. That is the file now, not the 54-game Sporting reel from last spring.